Legal framework for medical internships
What is the legal framework for a medical internship like? What do teaching hospitals and practices have to consider when delegating medical services? What is permissible and what is not?
Patient taxi, bed pushing and duplicating?
The practical year is not just an internship. What about working hours, work safety, occupational medical examinations, insurance or a study visit abroad?
Dr. Andreas Staufer will answer these and other questions in a one-hour lecture.
Doctors cannot delegate their services to third parties at will, especially not to non-doctors. Non-doctors also include students in the practical year (PJ students). With their medical studies, they are in a „grey zone“ between non-doctor and doctor – they still lack the license to practise medicine, but they should learn medical measures under guidance. The limits of what the physician may transfer or „delegate“ to the PJ are not always clear. If the doctor or the PJ student exceeds this limit, criminal and liability consequences threaten with far-reaching consequences also for the licensure.
The questions of delegation of medical services to non-physicians – in particular to PJ students – have not yet been conclusively clarified by case law. Clinics would therefore do well to examine the delegation of medical services to non-physician staff, to establish appropriate workflows and to determine the permitted measures of the PJ students in a curriculum.
The lecture is therefore intended to sensitise medical students to risks without stirring up fear of practising medicine.
Overview of the discussed court decissions
- Conviction of a medical student in practical year (Bielefelder Baby)
Bielefeld Local Court, 10 Ds-16 Js 279/11-1009/12 (1st instance)
Bielefeld Regional Court, 011 Ns-16 Js 279/11-11/13 (2nd instance) - Condemnation of a medical student in the practical year (coma vigil)
LG Mainz, judgment of 09.04.2014 , 2 O 266/11 - Education by medical students in the practical year
OLG Karlsruhe – Judgment of 29 January 2014 – Case 7 U 163/12
Information from the delegation of medical services
- Personal service provision –
Possibilities and limits of the delegation of medical services
German Medical Association and National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (as of 29.08.2008)